How two diehard Blue Jays fans became unlikely social media stars
At the end of the day, diehard Toronto Blue Jays fan Johnny Giunta is just looking for love.
One of the three co-hosts of the Blue Jays-focused Gate 14 Podcast — along with Avery Chenier and Jeremy Roach — Giunta has quickly become one of the faces of a younger generation of Toronto baseball fans rooting for a team on the rise.
And though striking out with his love life — often while watching games at the Rogers Centre’s Corona Rooftop Patio — is a constant inside joke amongst his following, he’s struck gold by dedicating his time to create a baseball podcast and content network that’s taken on a life of its own over the last 14 months.
Giunta, a 26-year-old who lives in Guelph but spends more than his fair share of time crashing with friends in Toronto, linked up with Chenier and Roach back in April 2022 to launch the now-popular podcast’s first-ever episode.
Giunta often spends his time streaming his reactions to Jays games live on YouTube, where viewers often gift the host donations throughout the course of the broadcast.
With Chenier and Roach usually busy with their day jobs or other responsibilities to join the streams live, it’s often Giunta going solo to the viewers to share his reactions to however the Blue Jays are doing on a given day.
The podcast has amassed 18,800 followers on TikTok, 6,500 on Twitter, and 3,700 on Instagram, to go along with 2,800 subscribers on YouTube.
Though other content creators might have larger audiences to speak to, it’s clear Gate 14 has built up a passionate audience that resonates with the emotion shown by its co-hosts.
“People actually get mad when we’re not streaming,” Giunta said in an interview with Daily Hive.
And that fact that he’s getting money from his fans simply for cheering about a home run or falling to the ground after a high-leverage strikeout? Well, it’s something Giunta himself is still trying to wrap his head around.
“It’s stupid,” Giunta said with a laugh. “I wouldn’t do it myself.”
So far, the money from the podcast mostly fuels the pair’s trips to go catch the Blue Jays on the road, the most recent of which was to Detroit, where they were in attendance for a combined no-hitter by the Tigers against the visiting Blue Jays.
The content often stretches into the ridiculous — a one-on-one basketball matchup that amassed 2,500 views — or a pair of videos of the co-hosts wearing full Blue Jays uniforms, including pants, belts, and cleats to the Rogers Centre.
Giunta has a full-time job in marketing but admits that he spends far more time in his day interacting with his followers and creating content for Gate 14‘s various platforms.
Currently, the show is the No. 3 ranked baseball podcast in Canada on Apple Podcasts, and the only one in the top 10 without either an established network or longtime media member as their co-host.
“The first time I knew it was real is when we beat the Sportsnet podcasts [on the charts],” Chenier said.
Andrew Zuber, a cohost of the Less Than Jays podcast with previous work experience and Sportsnet, theScore, and Yahoo Canada, said he’s most impressed by the authenticity of the co-hosts during their streams and podcasts.
“They aren’t afraid to put their best and worst moments on display,” Zuber, known more commonly online by his internet persona “The Zubes” said.
“I really appreciate that the guys get hyped for home runs and wins, and feel real low when the team, say, gets no-hit by the Detroit Tigers. That’s how fans really feel, and instead of sort of being reminded that ‘hey, there’s lots of baseball left’ it gives a sense of permission, like, it’s also totally okay to feel this way based on today’s result.”
So how did the Gate 14 Podcast come to be?
Though it might seem like Giunta and Chenier are longtime pals, the two actually only met for the first time via Zoom right before their first episode recording last year.
Having followed each other on social media and being fans of each others’ work, it was a pretty simple “Hey, wanna start a Blue Jays podcast together?” series of messages that ultimately led to the show’s creation.
Roach joined the team to do mostly behind-the-scenes work — through being a coworker of Chenier’s at the fantasy sports-focused tech company Owners Box — and well, the rest, as they say, is history.
“This is gonna be electric,” Giunta said just over a minute into the first-ever episode last April, though he admits now the rise of the podcast since its beginning is something he still can’t quite comprehend.
Giunta had been hosting his own podcast since 2019, titled Officially Unofficial, where he’d linked up with hundreds of major and minor league players to chat about their careers.
Having built up a network of professional baseball-playing pals through Call of Duty lobbies and friends of friends, Officially Unofficial laid the groundwork for what would eventually become the show that would turn Giunta and Chenier from baseball-loving fanatics into social media stars of their own.
Giunta says Roach, who’s less active on social media than the other two, isn’t always as tuned into the day-to-day happenings of the Blue Jays but helps add a comedic third voice to the mix.
“That’s the Gate 14 difference,” Giunta joked.
The name of the Gate 14 Podcast was simply inspired by the gate that Giunta typically entered the Rogers Centre from as a child, with the minimalistic logo having since spawned a wide-ranging set of merch that’s been a steady secondary source of income for the show’s hosts.
Blue Jays players love it
Content from the podcast has infiltrated the Blue Jays players’ group chats, with the hosts befriending multiple players on the squad, even having Danny Jansen, Mitch White, and Chris Bassitt on the show this year.
They’ve grown big enough that team security at the Rogers Centre typically already has opened the gate for the pair to snap a quick pic for their followers on the turf, often with a Gate 14-branded piece of merchandise heading towards one of the Blue Jays players.
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Giunta said he’s learned to find a way to mix his passion with a sense of empathy for the day-to-day grind of being an MLB player.
Both he and Chenier had brief collegiate careers in the US, though their easily Googleable stats — and their own admissions — would show you they’re far better off trying to make it big behind a mic than in a pro dugout.
Their podcasts are far from G-rated, but Giunta says he’s always conscious of what sorts of sentiments he’s sending into the world.
“What we say, a lot of our followers will repeat,” Giunta said.
And though he doesn’t describe himself as “extremely positive” all the time, he’s careful about making things too personal when a player has a tough day at the plate or in the field, knowing firsthand how nasty some of the comments directed towards players can be on social media.
“What do you get out of just bashing a guy online?” Giunta asked. “Even if they’re not seeing it, their families are definitely seeing it.”
The rise to “fame”
Chenier, who is a coach on the Ontario Blue Jays’ 18U as well as the Wilfrid Laurier University Golden Hawks, said it isn’t uncommon to be asked by a player from the opposing dugout to ask him for a photograph following games he’s coaching in.
“[Our podcast] shows what’s lacking in baseball,” Chenier said. “A lot of young people really love baseball… as we grow, our audience will grow with us.”
During the course of our interview on Tuesday at the Rogers Centre, no less than five young fans stopped the hosts for a photo. The hosts admit that the sometimes cult-like following often has hilarious consequences, including those looking to add “Gate 14 intern” to their CV.
During an episode, the hosts once made an offhanded comment about needing an accountant to help deal with the podcast’s financial side of things.
Shortly after, they received nearly 30 resumes of fans looking to find a way to get involved, though they later clarified the current need for an accountant was a joke.
Giunta says his goal is to eventually make the podcast full-time work, though they’re focused on the process of growing the audience through as much content as they can produce right now.
“When it’s no longer fun, that’ll be the end of it,” Chenier said, though Giunta’s trademark “Gate 14 forever” cry shows that’s unlikely to be anytime soon.
And most importantly, Giunta has found a way to fill his time doing something he loves, even if his romantic life is still a work in progress.
“I would die for the Toronto Blue Jays,” he said. “I just love this sh*t.”
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